Fact of the day

Information is the most powerful weapon.

Monday

Fact N°
904

The average person in America spends about 52 minutes a day reading the newspaper.

John Q. Public is also financially better off than his parents, lives within a few miles of both a McDonald's and a public park, and he contradicts himself over whether or not he trusts these national polls.
Opinion polls like Gallop begin by leveling the playing field. They poll people in the one place they all share: the home. Using the principle of equal probability of selection, their goal is to allow every adult American an equal chance of falling into the sample.
Gallop has polled Americans on their opinion of Gallop polls, and learned that Americans are skeptical of these methods... but have a tendency to trust the results.

Tuesday

Fact N°
905

Portia de Rossi's real name is Amanda Lee Rogers.

De Rossi was born in January 1973 in Melbourne, Australia. In an interview with The Advocate, the lesbian actress says she struggled with her sexuality from an early age. This struggle provided the impetus to legally change her name at age 15, since she felt her birth name "didn't fit"Â who she was.
She chose Portia from a character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice because it sounded Italian and cosmopolitan -- a world away from her life in Australia.

Wednesday

Fact N°
906

Josephine Clofullia, the most famous bearded lady of all time, had a beard that was 6 inches long by the time she was 16.

Because of the way she so drastically defies societal conventions, the bearded lady was a staple of the circus sideshows of the 19th and early 20th centuries. While many were fake, Clofullia was not; she traveled with P.T. Barnum, who had her beard officially measured at 6 inches.
The condition is known as hirsutism, or more clinically hypertrichosis, and is defined as the "excessive growth of hair of normal or abnormal distribution." It can affect men or women.
The current Guinness Book record-holder for the longest beard on a woman is Vivian Wheeler, whose beard measures in at 11 inches (27.9 cm).

Thursday

Fact N°
907

Three employees of the Hockey Hall of Fame are "Keepers of the Cup," responsible for the 24-hour security of the Stanley Cup.

Mike Bolt, Phil Pritchard and Paul Oak go wherever the Cup goes. Over the past five years alone, the Cup has traveled over 400,000 miles. Beyond numerous destinations in Canada and the United States, it has been to Sweden, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, England, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and even Afghanistan.
It has also been on roller coasters, jetskis, helicopters, motorcycles, and Ferris Wheels. It has been a ring bearer in a wedding, drop-kicked into a canal, forgotten on the side of the road, stolen, urinated into and used to grow geraniums, among other adventures.

Friday

Fact N°
908

OK is the abbreviation of the intentionally misspelled "oll korrect."

There are a lot of different explanations out there for the origin of OK, but only one is accurate.
In the summer of 1838, writers for Boston newspapers began a fad for abbreviations and misspellings that included the likes of NS, for "nuff said," NG for "no go," and OK for "oll korrect." Unlike all the other abbreviations, OK actually caught on.

Saturday

Fact N°
909

You can find a bunny hidden on almost every cover of Playboy magazine.

The iconic Playboy rabbit head has appeared on every cover except the first one. According to Hugh Hefner, he chose the rabbit for his magazine's symbol "because of the humorous sexual connotation," and because he offered an image that was frisky and playful.
According to the magazine's first art director, rather than being a carefully crafted corporate logo, the bunny was drawn in a single draft and was the product of no more than a half-hour's work.

Sunday

Fact N°
910

A grizzly bear can run 100 yards in 5.5 seconds.

According to Bearplanet.org, a full-grown male grizzly weighing in around 500 kg (1100 lbs) can use his remarkable powerful limbs to reach running speeds of 60 km/h (37.3 mph). Converted into a 100-yard dash, the grizzly can cover 18.2 yards per second.